In a year dominated by Xbox One and Playstation 4, it's easy to overlook what the other big developers are bringing to the next-generation table.

Enter Nvidia, best known in the PC gaming community for graphics cards, and their ambitious hand-held console, SHIELD.

We talked toJason Paul, Director of Product Marketing of SHIELD at NVIDIA, about the challenges of taking on portable gaming.

World at your fingertips: The SHIELD is compatible with Steam - a host site for thousands of games

1. What made you want to take on the handheld market?

Paul: 'SHIELD was created by NVIDIA engineers who love gaming and envisioned a new way to play. We were inspired by new mobile and cloud technologies that can let us game anywhere, on any screen. We think that SHIELD can do for games what the iPod and Kindle have done for music and books, and let people consume content in a brand new way.

'We built SHIELD because we believe that gaming should be based on open platforms. Consumers can check out Android games from anywhere they want, while also being able to stream games from their PCs, untethered, from anywhere in the house.

'And building it on Android allows consumers to access their existing content library and gives them an enormous base of content to shop from.'

2. What is it about SHIELD that will make people want to buy it?

Paul: 'NVIDIA SHIELD is the ultimate gaming and entertainment portable.

'For gaming, SHIELD is the best way to play Android games and gives consumers the best possible gaming experience in a mobile form factor.

'With Tegra 4, a full HD retinal quality display, booming speakers and full console-grade controls, consumers have incredible capability right at their fingertips. Gamers can also stream PC games over their home Wi-Fi network to SHIELD, allowing them to play PC games from any room in the house.

'For entertainment, consumers can access hundreds of thousands of apps on Google Play store, including Netflix and other popular applications like your photos, movies, e-mail and Facebook.'

3. How is SHIELD incorporated into next-gen gaming?

Paul: 'SHIELD’s Tegra 4 processor brings console quality gaming to a handheld form factor, enabling a new class of immersive, graphics rich games on Android. And with its PC streaming capability, SHIELD brings the latest, cutting edge DirectX 11 PC games to any room in the house.'

4. What are the key features it has?

Paul: 'SHIELD is powered by Tegra 4 for unmatched Android gaming performance and graphics quality. It features a multi-touch full HD 720p retinal-quality display, has integrated bass-reflex speakers for great sound, features a console-grade games controller and runs on Jelly Bean, the latest version of Android.

Screen savior: graphics on the SHIELD have to be seen to be believed - surpassing current-gen offerings

5. What is your favourite thing about SHIELD?

Paul: 'Being able to play Borderlands 2 in bed with SHIELD’s PC streaming capability. I also love using SHIELD as a portable music player around the house – the bass-reflex speakers offer near Jambox quality audio.'

6. Have you plans to update the design?

Paul: 'We plan regular refreshes of SHIELD but don’t have any details to share on the next-generation at this time.'

7. How does it compare power-wise to the PS Vita and 3DS?

Paul: 'SHIELD is built for extended gameplay, so expect great battery life while running 3D games, videos, and apps. It delivers 4-5 hours of gameplay for Tegra 4 optimised games and up to 10 hours of gameplay for typical Android games.'

8. What kind of exclusives can we expect?

Paul: 'With SHIELD, we decided to focus on open gaming platforms – Android and PC. We are not trying to create closed ecosystems with exclusive content, but rather tap into large existing ecosystems and offer gamers the best way to consume content from these ecosystems. We think this approach is better for developers and gamers alike, as they can create and consume content across multiple platforms.

'Already there are over 100 Android games on Google Play that are optimised for controllers and work great with SHIELD. Consumers can also access a number of optimised titles, such as Riptide GP2, Sonic 4 Episode II THD and Expendable: Rearmed, that take advantage of Tegra 4 performance and capabilities.'

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Paul: 'We decided to launch SHIELD in the US and Canada first. We don’t yet have a date for European availability, but do plan to bring it to international markets as soon as possible.'

10. What do you worry about with SHIELD? Is it too niche?

Paul: 'Not at all – there are over 300M people playing games on Android – many of them playing graphics-intensive genres. So there is a big market opportunity today. But we also see SHIELD opening new opportunities.

'We think over the course of the next couple years you’ll see some major changes in how gamers consume their content.

'With the Cloud, gamers will be able to consume high quality content from anywhere they want and SHIELD is an awesome mobile device for not only native Android gaming, but also for playing streamed games.'